Devices for brushing or cleaning teeth such as electrical toothbrushes or electrical oral irrigators customarily have a grip or a handle section or handhold to which a variety of cleaning tools such as brush attachments, jet nozzles, interproximal brushes or brush sections are attachable, thus enabling several users to use the dental cleaning device with their own, in particular person-related cleaning tools. Such electrical toothbrushes are known, for example, from DE 19627752 A1 or EP 0624079 B1.
From DE 299 15 858 U1 a dental cleaning device is known in which each of the different toothbrushes can be inserted only into its assigned receptacle in a console. This then starts the program provided for this particular toothbrush. Particularly children find it however difficult to locate the individual opening for insertion of their personal toothbrush and mating engagement of the plug. Furthermore, this console involves high complexity of manufacture, considering that it requires the provision of a plurality of different receptacles and each of the toothbrushes has a different plug assigned to its own receptacle.
In a further device disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,184,959, each hand toothbrush is assigned its own accommodating slot in a housing, so that each toothbrush can be assigned an individual brushing time signal via the housing. This arrangement is very elaborate from the manufacturing point of view without providing for the detection and storage of user-specific data of the tooth cleaning operation.
Such dental cleaning devices are capable of improvement on many counts. One problem encountered is in particular that in storage-battery-operated toothbrushes the storage battery may become depleted prematurely. This may happen, for example, in cases where the toothbrush is not properly stowed away in a travel case or the like, so that the drive mechanism turns on accidentally. Furthermore, it may happen that the handle section is not always coupled with the correct brush attachments, so that as a result of the lack of compatibility the handle section, for example, the coupling portions, may be damaged particularly in the area of the drive train, or a proper cleaning function is not assured, likewise for lack of compatibility.
Furthermore, dental cleaning devices, namely electrically operated toothbrushes comprising a handle section and an attachable brush section in which the handle section has in a recess of its housing a mechanically actuatable switch which, as the case may be, is covered by a water-tight protective foil such that a switching contact of said switch is actuated by means of an extension of the plastic housing of the brush section when the brush section is attached to the handle section, were also launched on the market in the USA in approximately 1992 from the company Bausch & Lomb, model Interplak, e.g., the PB-6. Once the switching contact has been actuated by an attached brush section, the drive mechanism of the toothbrush can be switched on by means of an ON switch on the handhold. These features are provided presumably for safety reasons because, unlike many other handle sections on electrical toothbrushes, the drive shaft on the previously mentioned toothbrush oscillates back and forth in the direction of the longitudinal axis. The stroke of the shaft is so considerable that switching on the handle section without an attached brush section could lead to risk of injury because the drive shaft makes a stroking movement similar to a sewing needle on a sewing machine.
From DE 28 26 008 C2 there is known a switch for actuating an electrical toothbrush with a permanent magnet arranged on an annular actuating member, said annular actuating member being axially displaceably arranged on the housing. The permanent magnet of the annular actuating member activates or deactivates a magnetically sensitive switch, e.g. a reed relay, which is arranged in the interior of the housing of the toothbrush. The annular actuating member can be pulled off the housing of the toothbrush, enabling the housing and the actuating member to be cleaned with ease after its removal. Removing the actuating member has the simultaneous effect of making it impossible for the electrical toothbrush to be switched on, thus preventing a toothbrush with the actuating member detached from switching on by itself when it is being transported in a case and the batteries or storage batteries becoming depleted accidentally.
The above-mentioned features for providing a certain travel security function have not proven a success in practice however because in the case of the Interplak® solution considerable force is required to attach and detach the brush section to and from the handle section in order to actuate the switching contact provided in the handle section. A further problem is that the switching contacts become dirty and that a great effort is needed to produce a dirt- or water-proof covering over the switching contact. The detachable switching ring in patent specification DE 28 26 008 C2 is intended likewise to perform a security function when traveling, but here there is a problem in that the detached switching ring can get lost, particularly on journeys, and that it is then impossible to set the handhold in operation even with full batteries or storage batteries. Furthermore, these known solutions for providing security when on journeys display little flexibility as regards other comfort functions such as the automatic adaptation of a handle section's operating parameters to a specific brush section or the user-specific collection and storage of cleaning data or the like.
From EP 0 848 921 A1 there is also known a brush for DIY use and a manufacturing method therefor, in which a tag as data memory is irremovably fastened in the brush itself, namely between a bristle carrier and a cup-shaped holding element. It is then intended to use the tag to store data concerning safety standards, maximum speed, country of origin, manufacturer's brand, article number, connection diameter and, for example, a barcode that can be read by an electronic reading system at the cash-desk of a DIY store, for example. The tag can be made in particular of aluminum or a heat-resistant plastic material because the brushes are exposed to very high temperatures during use. This tag is evidently an aluminum or plastic disk that has a surface loaded with optically readable information and is irremovably connected with the brush body. The disadvantage of such codes, however, is that they have a rather small storage capacity and cannot be re-programmed. Their readability also assumes that the code is freely accessible in optical terms, which is not the case in all applications.
Further, there is known a multiplicity of electronic article security systems in which security tags comprising, for example electrical resonant circuits or soft magnetic sensor strips, are affixed to the articles and excited by electromagnetic fields in gates installed in shop exit areas. If the articles have not been paid for, i.e., the security tags are still active, a signal is detected and an alarm emitted. Pertinent details can be found, for example, in the article “Der groβe Lauschangriff auf Ladendiebe” by Gieselher Herzer, Physikalische Blätter 57 (2001), No. 5, pages 43 to 48.
A sub-case of these systems are the systems referred to as RFID (radio frequency identification) systems, which find application on noncontacting chip cards and, more recently, on motor vehicle keys or refuse bins in order, in the latter case, to enable invoices to be issued according to the actual emptying of the bins.
Such systems are known, for example, from U.S. Pat. No. 5,812,065, WO 00/42584, U.S. Pat. No. 6,177,870, WO 00/39768, DE 199 53 651 A1 or WO 98/24527, the system disclosed in the last mentioned specification being used in an electronic toy to exchange data between a figure, which is equipped with a transponder, and a base unit, which is equipped with a reader.